Hugh Hewitt Makes Weak Attempt to Bolster Jane Norton’s Poll Showing

Yesterday I actually found myself in a mood to give national radio host Hugh Hewitt a chance to not embarrass himself in talking about Colorado politics. After all, with a great interview early in the show, Hewitt finally acknowledged the existence of rising star and Colorado Congressional candidate Ryan Frazier. (I haven’t listened much lately: has Hugh Hewitt finally noticed Cory Gardner, too?)

Well, there may be a small grain of truth in Hewitt’s criticism (though the conspiratorial broadside against the Denver Post, asserting they want a weaker Republican candidate to go against Michael Bennet, does not withstand scrutiny), it doesn’t amount to much. First of all, the survey sample actually was 57 percent men vs. 43 percent women.

Second, while I tend to think a reasonable analysis would show this August’s GOP primary electorate will be slightly more male than female, even weighting the SurveyUSA poll results to be 50-50 doesn’t help Norton all that much. In fact, weighting the results in this fashion would yield a 52-38 result in favor of Buck rather than 53-37, a less-than-monumental two-point shift.

My read of the recent poll results in the Colorado Republican U.S. Senate primary had been to see Ken Buck with the advantage in a race still very much up for grabs. But the apparent desperation from within the Norton campaign and among some of its leading champions is causing me to make a reassessment of just how commanding Buck’s lead is.